The Amaz!ng Meeting (TAM for short) is an annual conference celebrating science and skepticism sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation, and is considered by many to be the premier skeptical event of the year. The conference boasts a dazzling array of speakers, side-events, and entertainment. Frequent guests include Adam Savage of MythBusters, Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy, magicians Penn & Teller, Richard Dawkins, the cast of the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe, and—of course—James "The Amazing" Randi.
The JREF was founded in 1996 by conjurer and skeptic James Randi, who is most famous for his numerous appearances on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and for his Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge. The organisation's primary goal is to educate the public and the media with regard to the dangers of accepting unproven claims. The JREF also supports research into paranormal claims under controlled scientific experimental conditions.
The Amaz!ng Meeting began as a modest conference attended by 150 people in Fort Luderdale, Florida, where the JREF is based. Since the first TAM in 2003 interest in the conference has swelled; it moved to Las Vegas the next year, and by TAM 8 in 2010 the conference had more than 1300 attendees. The JREF also sponsors international TAM satellite conferences, with the first TAM London taking place in 2009 and the inaugural TAM Australia in 2010.
If you attend a TAM conference, you can expect amazing speakers and panel discussions on a wide range of topics, from creationism to climate change, from feminism to grass-roots skeptical activism, from genetic engineering to the latest in quirky psychological research. Without exception the speakers are incredibly friendly and welcoming people and the atmosphere is inviting and grand. The conference boasts many side-events, featuring workshops, additional panel discussions, and even musical performances by the likes of Roy Zimmerman and George Hrab.
It's common to start off your day at The Amaz!ng Meeting with coffee and pastries while attending a live taping of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe and end the day at the SGU Dinner or with one of Rebecca Watson's infamous parties. You'll get to hobnob with your skeptical heroes and witness events that will be talked about in skeptical circles for years to come (I'm looking at you, "Don't Be a Dick"!).
But if you can't attend, don't despair! Some of the talks from past years are available for free on Vimeo, and from time to time the JREF will produce DVDs of the entire conference.
Russell Glasser, co-host of The Atheist Experience television show and all-around cool guy, has waded into the rapidly expanding mire that is swirling 'round Phil Plait's "Don't be a Dick" speech. From the AE blog:
We do attack ideas, but we attack them in a way that sometimes offends people. The point, though, is that the people who are taking offense are often doing so due to unreasonable beliefs. Like PZ Myers and his "frackin' cracker." It's less about the offensive language and more about the fact that certain people believe the cracker is the body of Jesus -- which it clearly isn't -- and they are willing to terrorize and intimidate people who don't treat it with the respect due to a magical cracker -- which it isn't. It's about the fact that people should be allowed to draw cartoons with Mohammed as a character -- clearly an activity that harms no one except by annoying them -- without receiving death threats.
Agreed. If you have unreasonable expectations in terms of "politeness" (i.e., expectations that are not based upon reason), then you're liable to be offended. Enjoy! You're welcome to follow whatever tenets and strictures that your religion imposes upon you—but the moment that you try to force someone else to abide by your religious doctrines, you're being an ass, and you're wrong. You can't prevent a person from drawing your prophet. You can't prevent a person from sticking a nail through a wafer of wheat. You can't prevent two people who love each other from marrying. You just can't do that.
But Phil Plait would also like to strengthen his case by sneakily conflating two things. On one hand, we have posts that say "All Christians are Retards," a statement which is both dickish and false. On the other hand, we have PZ Myers throwing his cracker in the trash. By conflating the two, we can be left with the impression that PZ Myers calls all Christians retards, when in reality the two acts are not equivalent.
It just seems to me that way too often, saying "Don't be a dick" is actually code for "Shut up and accept it when other people are dicks to you."
Now, I like PZ Myers a lot. He can be a little dickish at times—I think that this is true. But, as I said in my response to Phil's talk, there is a difference between being blunt and being a dick:
I've seen people being fairly blunt, but I think that that definitely has its place. I don't think that the phrase "God is imaginary" should be considered especially offensive, for example (and if it offends you, I quite frankly don't care), but it certainly is blunt.
The problem is, as far as I can see, Phil didn't actually "strengthen his case by sneakily conflating" PZ Myers' desecration of a communion wafer with posts that call Christians offensive names. This was the only post by Phil Plait that turned up when I did a cursory Google search for "myers wafer" against the Bad Astronomy domain:
The Vatican has released a previously secret list of sins. The list itself is not terribly surprising, of course. What shocked me was the way it listed relative importance of these sins: desecrating a Eucharist (the cracker Catholics believe is the transubstantiated body of Christ) is considered a worse sin than murder or even genocide.
I had to read that part twice to make sure I had understood it, but the meaning is pretty clear. What PZ Myers did was worse, according to this doctrine, than what Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot did.
I understand that if you are a devout Catholic, you truly and fervently believe the cracker has become the actual body of Christ. But honestly, is spitting it out — an example specifically stated in the article — or even driving a rusty nail through it a worse sin than actually murdering millions of living people? I’ve read the Bible, and from the Sermon on the Mount it doesn’t sound to me that Jesus was someone who would think that way.
Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but Phil doesn't seem to be coming down hard against PZ. It's quite possible that Russell has some information that currently escapes me, but I can't find any reference to Phil calling PZ's desecration "dickery", and I frankly don't understand why Russell thinks Phil is being sneaky.
As I've said previously, I agree with a lot of what Phil said, but I don't think that we're overrun with dicks:
I don't really doubt Phil's premise, but I would have liked to hear a few substantive, representative examples of such discourtesy. I understand that he intentionally didn't single anyone out, but such examples would prove beneficial to ensure that everyone is on the same page. The problem, I think, is that "being a dick" is fairly subjective.
In terms of "vitriol and venom", I honestly haven't seen a lot of it firsthand.
Perhaps dickery is a problem among rank-and-file Internet skeptics, but I don't think that it's a major issue with the well-known voices in the skeptic movement.
So, where do we stand?
It seems to me that Phil make several good points with regard to tone and I find his endorsement of Wheaton's Law fine and laudable—these are things that are important to keep in mind during discussions with believers of all stripes. That said, I agree with Russell that we may have a bit of a tempest in a teapot on our hands, for while Phil gives good advice the implication seems to be that we have a dangerous proliferation of dicks on our hands. (Did I mention that this post would have mild NSFW content combined with bizarre imagery? Well, I should have.) And that doesn't seem quite right, either.
For the record, not only do I support PZ Myers' right to desecrate that communion wafer, I think that given the context it was actually the right thing to do.
This is the eleventh in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here.
Phil's talk was controversial, to say the least. It's fairly easy to get the Internet riled up, and many skeptics have a tendency to be contrary at the best of times—but, all the same, I think that his point has been unfairly represented, in many cases by people who didn't attend (and thus were not privy to) the talk. So consider yourself warned: this post will contain more commentary than usual.
I'm going to jump right into my summary of the presentation before I get to the commentary and a brief discussion of the backlash that followed. Bear in mind that what I write is (as always) probably more of a reflection of what I got out of the talk than it is a real summary of the presentation, so if you'd rather listen to the talk in full (and you would), you're in luck! The JREF has just posted it, in its entirety, online:
Phil Plait starts us off with an apology (always a good sign): while he usually speaks off the cuff, this time he wrote the whole thing down ahead of time, because he's tired of having what he says misinterpreted. (Spoiler alert: it didn't help.) Typically, he talks about astronomy, but not today. Today, he is concerned by what he calls "some alarming developments" within the skeptical movement.
Skepticism is hard. ... How do you convince someone they're not thinking clearly when they're not thinking clearly?
Phil states that studies have shown that debunking claims will often later reinforce those same ideas. I'm sure that we've all seen this happen up close and personal, and several psychological papers have been published that bear this out.
No magic. No afterlife. No authoritative moral father figure in the sky. No happily ever after. This is a tough sell.
And it's made tougher by the fact that our society stresses faith. "Belief is the highest ideal," Phil tells us. "Clap if you want Tinkerbell to live." There is a smattering of applause, after which Dr. Plait gives the audience a wry look. "Congratulations. Because of you the Cottingley Fairies are still alive." Laughter.
"On a brighter note, homeopathy may be diluting itself out of existence." But at the same time, pertussis is on the rise and polio is coming back.
"Let me ask you this: What is the goal of the skeptical, critical thinking movement?" In some cases we need to debunk specific examples: specific bunk is worth debunking—but that's not what this is about.
Phil tells us that he's not here to talk about using the toolbox: he wants to talk about shop safety. He opines that rather than relying on the arguments, skeptics are becoming increasingly prone to vitriol and venom.
"Hubris is running rampant. Egos are out of check." The audience is told that demeanor is important. There are more believers than skeptics, and to be quite honest our brains aren't wired for this whole "critical thinking" thing. Even the best idea in the history of humanity is useless unless we can communicate it, and how we go about that communication will have a huge impact on whether it will take. Audience members are asked to think about times in the past when they have changed their minds. "It wasn't overnight," Phil reminds us, "and it wasn't because someone got in your face and called you an idiot."
Insults can start to fly for a many reasons, one of which is frustration. As Mary Roach said, "Anger seeks a victim." It may make us feel better to take out our frustration on a believer, but in chess, how often do you sacrifice a piece for the good of the game?
Phil Plait suggests that you ask yourself this: What is your goal? What are you trying to do? "Is your goal to score a cheap point, or is your goal to win the damn game?"
He ends the talk with two simple pieces of advice:
Always ask yourself what your goal is. Is this going to help? Is this just to make myself feel better? Is this going to hurt my cause?
Don't be a dick.
Winning hearts and minds is our goal.
Although some were clearly upset by what Phil Plait had to say, he did receive quite the ovation at the end of his talk. Hal Bidlack was clearly pleased, as he is very fond of the big tent approach. "You can be a conservative," he says, "and still not want people to have their memories raped and their money stolen by Sylvia Browne."
I talked with Phil Plait about his presentation, afterward. I can tell you that he was not proposing that everyone was doing it wrong. He said to me that he recognised that a diversity of voices is just fine, even important.
What we're talking about is strategy, and you need to figure out what you're trying to achieve. The point is that for any given goal there will be an approach that works best, and it will work best regardless of whether it gives you an adrenaline high. If you're trying to convince a person, telling him or her flatly that he or she is wrong is unlikely to work—it is much more likely to result in defensiveness and hostility to the ideas being presented. That's just the way our brains seem to function.
Full disclosure: Phil is another one of my intellectual crushes (I cannot begin to describe how excited I am about his new MythBusters-meets-Cosmos series, Phil Plait's Bad Universe), so if you think that you detect some bias in my reporting... well, that'll happen.
So.
Don't be a dick. Wil Wheaton may not have said it first, and he may not have said it loudest, but for some reason I think that he deserves credit for it anyway. In any event, that was more or less what Phil Plait's talk boiled down to. Phil has actually been thinking about this topic for quite some time. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that if you are (a) a skeptic and (b) a person with any friends, you have probably put at least cursory thought into the subject, as well. Here's what Phil said about it in 2009:
I sometimes have trouble in social situations because someone will say something that is perhaps not supported by reality, and I have wind up jumping right in. I don’t say they’re stupid or anything like that, but people identify with their ideas, so saying that an idea is wrong is basically saying they are wrong, and maybe even implying they’re stupid (or, more likely, they wind up inferring it).
Even when you try to be nice, some people are liable to take offence. That's okay—to some degree, it's inevitable. Steven Novella recently commented on this issue on Neurologica:
Where I find the conflict within the skeptical movement to be most persistent and unresolvable is in the personal choices that people make with respect to balances between the dictates of free speech and intellectual integrity (a consistent application of skepticism with no sacred cows) and the desire for courtesy, creating a friendly and collegiate environment, and presenting skepticism in a positive light.
Phil Plait is not unaware of the cloud of controversy that he's stirred up. Parts one and two of three planned posts discussing the aftermath of the talk are now available on Bad Astronomy. In part one he remarks:
Some were claiming they have a right to be dicks – I’m bemused by this, as of course you have that right. But that doesn’t mean it’s most effective, or that you should be one.
Yes. Many dissenters are framing this as a free speech issue, which it most definitely is not. Telling someone that their particular approach is counter-productive does not constitute censorship. Phil Plait is not suggesting that we should not be allowed to express our ideas in whatever manner that we choose—he is suggesting that we ought to consider the likely outcomes of what we're doing and weigh them against the outcomes that we actually desire.
Do I agree with him? Hell yes I do. In fact, I threw together a graph to illustrate the point:
What you should be doing is trying to accomplish your goal.
But it seems to me that sometimes "dickery" is warranted. There's room for both approaches, and picking your targets is important. When one is dealing with an individual true believer or with someone who is misguided or has been misled (a consumer of pseudoscience), I would agree with Phil that the gentler approach is more likely to yield the desired result. You probably won't get instant gratification, but more often than not it's about planting the seed of skepticism—it's unrealistic to expect the average person to turn on a dime.
But when one is dealing with a Deepak Chopra or a Sylvia Browne or a Kevin Trudeau (a purveyor of pseudoscience), it seems to me that the more aggressive approach is warranted. One is unlikely to convince these people (indeed, like as not many of them don't believe half of what they say), and turning them into rhetorical punching bags may serve a purpose.
So that's the line that I try to draw: I try to be gentle to the consumer of pseudoscience, but I get a little prickly toward the crackpots and confidence tricksters. Being a dick toward some poor sap who's been blinded by pseudoscience is probably not going to help anything.
But is anyone actually doing that?
Oh, probably. I mean, we're all dicks, sometimes. I don't really doubt Phil's premise, but I would have liked to hear a few substantive, representative examples of such discourtesy. I understand that he intentionally didn't single anyone out, but such examples would prove beneficial to ensure that everyone is on the same page. The problem, I think, is that "being a dick" is fairly subjective.
In terms of "vitriol and venom", I honestly haven't seen a lot of it firsthand. (Granted, I no longer read the comments on Pharyngula...) I've seen people being fairly blunt, but I think that that definitely has its place. I don't think that the phrase "God is imaginary" should be considered especially offensive, for example (and if it offends you, I quite frankly don't care), but it certainly is blunt. Then again, I'm skeptical enough to know that my personal experience doesn't generalise to the population at large.
One place that I definitely do see a lot of vitriol and venom is on the Internet, but it occurs to me that at least some of the perceived acerbity might be an error in interpretation. As my wife will attest, I often mount completely unsound ad hominem attacks on promoters of woo, but I think that the expression on my face and my tone of voice make it clear that these aren't meant to be serious arguments. But in a text-dominated format, such subtleties are difficult to express. When P.Z. Myers calls someone a "raving loon" (as he is prone to do), the tone that he intends when typing it may be anything from playfully chiding to incredulous to a barely coherent scream of rage. (Having spoken to the man, I think that the truth lies somewhere between the first two.)
At the same time, I do recognise that the impersonal nature of the Internet has led to some degeneration in the level of discourse, and that's even giving YouTube comments a free pass; people are willing to say things on the Internet that they certainly wouldn't even consider saying to another human being in person. Skaff Elias said it nicely on the Games with Garfield podcast (it was either episode 14 or 15):
The fact that someone's not going to leap across the table and punch you in the face—it's surprising how much that's actually a real constraint for people.
I have also occasionally been guilty of intentionally juxtaposing inflammatory content with straightforward, friendly delivery to draw people into an interesting discussion—this could easily be interpreted as being intentionally inflammatory. I'm thinking of the time that I cheerfully informed a coworker that I didn't believe that he had free will (not contra-causal free will, at any rate), or the time that, during a discussion about vat-grown meat, I asked my friends if they would try human meat if it were made readily available, hastily adding that I'd be delighted to do so (as long as some hickory-smoke barbecue sauce were ready to hand).
In some senses, I suppose that this would count as being a dick, but I think that it's mostly about startling people into thinking about things that they've never considered, before.
I'll give Phil the last word:
Again, to be clear, I did not say we should back down when confronted. I did not say we should be weak against ignorance. I did not say we shouldn’t be angry. I did not say we should be passionless.
In fact, I argued the exact opposite. We need our anger, or strength, and our passion.
Finally, Phil provided a fairly exhaustive list of blog entries pro and contra his position in part two of his discussion on Bad Astronomy. And, wonder of wonders, I'm actually on the list! I'm the "Winnipeg skeptic" to whom he refers.
Years from now I'll be saying, "...and I knew Phil Plait before he was a TV star."
This is the tenth in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
Pamela Gay
When Pamela is asked what she does at a party, people are invariable taken aback. No one expects to meet a scientist. In 2007 in the United States, for every 10,000 people there were 2.6 scientists, 3.0 clergyfolk, and 41.3 lawyers.
Pamela Gay believes that involving citizens in science—an effort called, appropriately enough, "citizen science"—is not only important, but is also a realistic goal. Crowdsourcing works. The most prominent example of citizen science in her field is Galaxy Zoo, where countless members of the public have helped sort through millions of astronomical objects to classify them.
Galaxy Zoo led directly to the discovery of Hanny's Voorwerp, an unknown astronomical object, in 2007. The pun "Give peas a chance!" was responsible for the discovery of small green galaxies 100 times smaller than our own, but each with greater stellar mass than the Milky Way. Pamela encourages anyone interested to participate in the science of astronomy by helping to classify stellar objects, survey craters on the moon, or watch for solar storms. Here are some links!
I now do Galaxy Zoo classifications during my lunch break at work. I find that it's a good, fun way to relax, and although it seems to me that artificial neural networks ought to be able to do a fair job of classifying such things, they probably wouldn't enjoy it as much as I would.
Pamela goes on to talk about making a difference at small state schools, telling the audience, "There is a desperate need for scientific missionaries." In 2009 she was teaching a science class, cramming all of the science an elementary school teacher needs to know into 16 weeks. She was asked why there is more matter than antimatter in the universe, and she began, "After the Big Bang—" but got no further before the Ph.D. chemist teaching the class next to her interrupted. "The Big Bang?" he cried. "Aren't you a Christian?"
"The battle isn't just to keep creationism out of the classroom—it's to keep science in."
I like Pamela Gay quite a lot. She is legitimately concerned about the state of science education. Although I disagree with her assertion that skepticism has nothing to say about religious faith (I think that Matt Dillahunty does a fair job of representing her position, as well as those of other theistic skeptics, here), she not feel the need to overlay her religious beliefs onto the science that she teaches. Not only that, she actively opposes such intrusions. And that, I think, makes her a praiseworthy ally.
This is the ninth in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
Adam Savage
I love Adam Savage—he's just one of those really cool people that I've been wanting to meet for years. I've never been the sort to attend conventions and the like, so I don't have many chances to hobnob with celebrities, but I've always felt that given the opportunity I would be perfectly capable of carrying on a normal conversation. Upon coming face to face with the fellow, however, I found myself unaccountably unable to put together a cogent sentence, much to my wife's amusement.
A brief aside: it was my wife who, when we were first dating, actually introduced me to MythBusters (I'd never had cable) and thus to Adam Savage. (If I remember correctly, the first episode that we watched together was the one in which Jamie and Adam attempted to determine whether running one would end up wetter if one were to run through the rain rather than walking.) I now had the opportunity to reciprocate, and (after untying my tongue) I had the pleasure of introducing Adam Savage to her.
Adam just has this effect on me, you know? He's one of those people up to whom I seriously look. (I hope that you'll excuse my absurd attempt to avoid ending that sentence with a preposition.) I try not to idolise people, but there are a few who are just such forces for good in the world that they make it truly difficult. This is why meeting Adam Savage, however briefly, was a major highlight of the conference for me. I'll never get to meet Richard Feynman or Carl Sagan, and that makes me sad, but Adam is in my mind a character of the same calibre: his excitement and enthusiasm for discovery is at once contagious and inspiring. The Winnipeg Skeptics will be hosting SkeptiCamp Winnipeg, Manitoba's first SkeptiCamp event, in October, and I will be presenting a talk tentatively titled "The Pleasure of Figuring Things Out". I have a feeling that Adam Savage will come up more than once.
But enough gushing.
Before beginning the Q&A session, Adam presented a speech that he'd delivered to the Harvard Humanist Society in April. You can read the full text at BoingBoing, but I'll quote some highlights:
I think one of the defining moments of adulthood is the realization that nobody's going to take care of you. That you have to do the heavy lifting while you're here. And when you don't, well, you suffer the consequences. At least I have. (And in the empirical study I'm performing about interacting with the universe, I am unfortunately the only test subject I have complete access to, so my data is, as they say, self-selected.) While nobody's going to take care of us, it's incumbent upon us to take care of those around us. That's community.
The fiction of continuity and stability that your parents have painted for you is totally necessary for a growing child. When you realize that it's not the way the world works, it's a chilling moment. It's supremely lonely.
So I understand the desire for someone to be in charge. (As a side note, I believe that the need for conspiracy theories is similar to the need for God.) We'd all like our good and evil to be like it is in the movies: specific and horrible, easy to defeat. But it's not. It's banal.
Adam briefly mentions that he was recently featured on the Nerdist podcast, where he performed stand-up comedy for the first time in his life. (And for those interested, the Nerdist podcast just did an episode featuring the entire current cast of MythBusters.)
Then the Q&A session began.
Things started off with a bang, when an Australian (I think) moon hoax proponent called the episode on the Moon Landing "a series of botched experiments". I seem to recall Phil Plait later commenting that the moon hoaxer was bothering him all weekend. (Phil's dissection of the Moon Hoax is required reading for skeptics: you can find it archived on the old Bad Astronomy site here.)
Adam dealt with the fellow with remarkable aplomb, and I say this not only because I obviously have quite the crush on him. "You sound quite hostile, so I'd say, 'Relax, what we do isn't science.' I'm biased by the fact that I know we were right in that episode, so you'll just have to take that." There was much laughter and applause.
The Q&A spun off in several different discussions from there, mostly centring around nitpicks of various MythBusters episodes. Adam mentioned w00tstock (which also featured Wil Wheaton, another really cool guy). For more information, head over to w00tstock's Wikipedia entry.
And then...
Announcements! Brace yourselves: we get a contractually-guaranteed five more years of MythBusters! Not only that, but Adam and Jamie are also going to be producing more shows for Discovery. (Adam assures us that, unfortunately, he can't do anything about the Ghost Hunters).
To wrap things up, the JREF auctions off a piece of the original duct tape bridge built for MythBusters. It's about six inches by six, and is signed by Adam and Jamie. After much running through the crowd showing it off, the piece sells for $650.
If you're just dying for more Adam Savage (and honestly, why wouldn't you be?), you can listen to him interviewed here for Geek a Week.
This is the eighth in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
Joe Nickell
Joe Nickell is friendly and mildly self-deprecating, calling himself "the warm-up act for Adam Savage." He was an undercover detective for several years, and begins by briefly discussing the ethics of undercover (and thereby inherently deceptive) skeptical operations—they are, in his assessment, necessary, and do more good than harm.
He speaks about his investigation of Camp Chesterfield, and the tell-all book by confessedly fraudulent psychic M. Lamar Keene, entitled The Psychic Mafia. Nickell went in under the name Jim Collins (an homage to Houdini's assistant of the same name), and the results of his investigations were eventually published in Skeptical Inquirer.
Joe tells the audience of a spiritualist church service in which participants were instructed: "Please address your billet to one or more loved ones in spirit, giving first and last names." Nickell asked how he was to fold his paper, and one of the people assigned to pick them up replied, "Just fold it in half once." Nickell points out that when all papers are folded in this way it is impossible to tell which is which.
The papers were gathered together in a basket, and the psychic at the podium would take one and hold it to his forehead. With head bent in prayer, the medium would read the paper with his mind, announcing its contents.
Joe Nickell explains that this is rather easy to do. Simply take a paper and hold it to your forehead, while taking a second paper behind the podium with the other hand, flipping it open, and reading it under cover of prayer. Announce the contents of the second paper to your astonished audience: they won't know the difference.
Joe gives a brief rundown of common forms of hucksterism that he's encountered over his long career, mentioning faith healing (Popoff, Hinn, etc.), psychic detectives, and others of their ilk. He castigates the Oasis of Hope Hospital for selling laetrile after several studies have shown that it has no effect on cancer survival. He discusses the stigmata of Lilian Bernas, and faked holy blood in Belgium. Finally, at the spiritualist camp at Lily Dale, Bartlet drew him a portrait of Yellow Bird, his recently fabricated aboriginal spirit guide.
It seems like Joe Nickell has had a fascinating career. If you'd like to read more about him, visit his website.
This is the seventh in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
About fifteen minutes before Simon Singh's presentation, Roy Zimmerman was welcomed to the stage to perform some old favourites. You can see many of them on YouTube.
After Zimmerman, there were some plugs for the upcoming TAM London, including a hilarious video from Richard Wiseman. It went something like this:
Simon Singh
It's time for a presentation by Simon Singh and his always audacious haircut. Singh has a PhD in particle physics (according to Bidlack, Singh used to study particles "smaller than Uri Geller's sense of ethics") but has more recently become an acclaimed science journalist.
I anticipated that we would be hearing about the suit leveled against him by the British Chiropractic Association (which I have mentioned in passing before). What I did not anticipate is how amusing the presentation would be: Simon Singh is a very funny man!
Simon begins by talking about a BBC 2 documentary called Alternative Medicine: the Evidence. Wow. You can read his take on it by visiting Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog, where Dr. Goldacre reproduces an email (with permission) that Simon had circulated regarding the myriad inaccuracies of the series. Singh goes on to discuss "anesthetic" acupuncture and how it is misleadingly portrayed in the media. For example, the series depicts acupuncture as being employed as an anesthetic for open-heart surgery, when there are in fact several powerful sedatives and local anesthetics swirling around in the patient's body as well.
Simon gives a quick plug for Trick or Treatment, a book that he wrote with Edzard Ernst (it's on my to-read list: it sounds fascinating!), before moving on to chiropractic.
He begins by talking about Palmer's original conception of chiropractic, in which disturbances in the flow of "innate intelligence" caused disease. Palmer claimed to be able to cure deafness (and just about everything else) by performing spinal adjustments which repaired the flow of this vitalistic energy.
When Simon published an article critical of chiropractic in The Guardian, the problems began (full text of the article, with annotations, here). The British Chiropractic association threatened to sue him for libel. The Guardian offered the BCA a right of reply, as well as an apology, but the BCA refused and took Simon to court.
A brief timeline of the incident:
18 April 2008: Article published. May 2008: BCA threatens Singh personally with a libel suit. May 2009: Preliminary hearing rules on the wording of the article. (This is bad.) April 2010: Preliminary ruling overturned. (This is good.) 15 April 2010: BCA drops the suit.
Simon Singh is not the only proponent of science-based medicine who has been sued by a quack. It is incredibly common. (See, for example, Matthias Rath's suit of Ben Goldacre.)
The problems with English libel laws are legion: suits are unbelievably costly, libel tourism is common, and the accused are presumed guilty until proven innocent. Although it was a personal nightmare for Simon, his case really began the British Libel Reform Campaign. Singh played a very encouraging clip from the British House of Lords, demonstrating that the government is serious about libel reform.
This is the sixth in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
These posts are compiled from notes taken on my iPhone during the presentations. I am now turning the screen brightness on the device way down in the hopes that its battery will make it though the day.
James Randi Interviewed by Jamy Ian Swiss
It looks like they'll be talking about Johnny Carson and how influential he was in the United States and abroad. Randi was on the show a total of twenty-two times. During the presentation, many old clips of Randi and Carson are aired.
Randi tells us that Johnny had a habit of sitting outside the studio in his white Corvette after the show, and as Randi exited Johnny would call him over. The two of them would sit in Johnny's car while the TV host smoked cigarette after cigarette, and they would talk.
Carson had a policy of never meeting with guests before they appeared together on-screen—but he constantly broke this rule for Randi. Johnny always had another question for him.
Randi got a call from Carson's show one day, asking him to appear on the show that night. Uri Geller would be a guest on The Tonight Show, and they wanted Randi to replicate or explain some of his parlour tricks. Randi, not wanting to tip off Geller, instead asked to speak to the prop master, who told him what was up.
Geller had requested several silver spoons and plastic film cannisters. Randi told the prop master to scotch tape the spoons to their tray and to put rubber cement on the bottom of the film cannisters.
Although Geller's dubious ability to bend spoons and keys using the power of his mind (in addition to the power of his hands) has been discussed in detail, the film cannisters were a fairly new trick: apparently several were to be presented to Geller, sealed, on a tray, one of them containing a small object. Geller would then lift the tray, and by surreptitiously observing the ways in which the cannisters slid slightly as he lifted it, he could determine which were empty and which contained hidden items. However, applying rubber cement to the bottom of the cannisters would greatly increase their coefficients of friction, preventing them from sliding and revealing the location of the hidden object.
The prop master did as Randi recommended, and Geller spent some eighteen minutes floundering before eventually giving up.
Randi went to see Peter Popoff at one of his many faith healing performances, and together with Banachek they discovered his trick: his wife was backstage transmitting via radio all of the relevant details about each audience member. They taped everything. Johnny Carson's producer bumped a few actresses, and allowed Randi to surprise the host with the stunning reveal.
Amazing.
"It turns out that God's frequency is 39.17 MHz..."
Popoff was ruined—but it didn't last. According to Randi, in 2009 Peter Popoff brought in $1,000,000 more than he did the year they shut him down.
During the discussion, Randi reveals that Johnny Carson was a heavy contributor to the JREF—he would frequently mail Randi letters containing short notes and cheques for $100,000. Randi relates that Penn Jilette once donated $50,000 on a humongous ten-foot cheque, saying that he wanted to be half the man that Johnny Carson was; much hilarity ensued when Randi went to the bank attempting to cash it.
The presentation ends with a clip of Randi performing psychic surgery on The Tonight Show.
This is the fifth in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
Here we have a panel discussion. All of the text in a given paragraph that follows a person's name (and a colon) is meant to paraphrase the points made by that person, with direct quotations marked where they occur.
Women in Skepticism Panel Rebecca Watson (Moderator), Carol Tavris, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Pamela Gay, Ginger Campbell, Harriet Hall
Rebecca Watson runs Skepchick and is a member of the SGU panel.
Carol Tavris is a social psychologist dedicated to "run[ning] after pop psychology and stomping it to death".
Jennifer Michael Hecht wrote The End of the Soul, The Happiness Myth, and several books of poetry.
Pamela Gay writes the Star Stryder blog and cohosts the AstronomyCast blog.
Ginger Campbell is an ER physician who podcasts at the Brain Science podcast.
Harriet Hall is a retired air force colonel and a family physician.
Rebecca: Are men more skeptical than women?
Carol: "No."
Laughter. There is a show of hands, demonstrating that nearly half of the audience is female.
Carol: "The question has always been: 'Are men this and are women that?'" What we should be asking is: "'What are the circumstances in men['s] and women's lives that welcome them into a profession?'" The sciences haven't traditionally been welcoming to women; let's not confuse the environment with something inherent.
Rebecca: We do hear a lot that women populate the psychic conventions—but don't men populate the Bigfoot conventions? Why would women be interested in being here?
Jennifer: There's a community here.
Jennifer Michael Hecht goes on to make some comparisons to poetry conventions that went back and forth and that I honestly couldn't follow very well. (My apologies.)
Harriet: "The skeptic movement is open to everyone."
Pamela: You look at the skeptical cruises and it's all white men. "We need role models in our field." Why is the skeptic movement so slow to change? We need the old boys to die off.
Ginger: "I remember bring in medical school and having very few women to look up to." I was at a dinner with a bunch of guys and they were talking football. I made a comment about football, and it was not even acknowledged.
Harriet: I had this experience over and over again. A woman would say something and everyone would ignore her. A man would make the same suggestion and suddenly it was a great idea.
Carol: When you're the only x in a given group, anything you say will be attributed to that difference. You need to reach roughly a 30% market penetration before your individual talents are appreciated.
Jennifer: I recommend Annie Laurie Gaylor's book Women Without Superstition. And if you've read the Bible, you'll know that Job's wife as a striking voice of reason in that story.
Rebecca: What do we have to gain by increasing diversity?
Jennifer: People will listen to you if you are like them. By making this group more inclusive and diverse we can make skepticism in America reach a more diverse audience.
Carol: What do I gain by wanting to join a skeptical organisation? Feminism was inherently skeptical.
At this point, the panel begins taking questions from the audience.
Question: Has anyone ever discouraged you from being a scientist because you were a woman?
Jennifer: I was given a C by my high school physics teacher to prevent me from attending a good university.
Question: Could you elaborate more on the nature versus nurture of skepticism?
Carol: What you want more than a role model is a mentor. Your role model doesn't have to be your colour, your gender, your age. They just need to be doing something that you want to do.
Pamela: There was a study done in the physical sciences, recently. It found that women were publishing fewer, longer articles each year. Women put out three papers each year that got an average of ten citations each, while men put out ten papers each year that got three citations each. Women had fewer publications, but equal impact. We've changed how we judge these things as a result. The differences in how we do research leads to innovation in the field.
This is the fourth in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
I've seen Dawkins in the hall a few times, and based on the expression on his face I'm left with the impression that he isn't especially approachable. He will do a brief book-signing, but makes it clear (through Hal Bidlack) that he will not be taking pictures with fans. To be fair, having his picture taken with several hundred people would take quite some time.
Sean Faircloth
My first impression of Sean Faircloth is, believe it or not, that he is bizarrely handsome. He actually really looks like a politician—you know, one of those young film or TV politicians who are running for governor or some such thing. He's not (I checked IMDb), but I'm just sayin'.
My only real problem with his presentation is that it assumes (as would several other presentations to come) that the audience is American, an assumption that is not borne out by the diversity of the crowd.
Sean talks about the Secular Coalition for America and their lobbying efforts, and how difficult it is to advocate for the separation of church and state. He makes mention of David Vitter, an American senator who apparently stated or implied that opposing gay marriage was more important to him than providing hurricane relief, even if hurricanes the size of Katrina and Rita were to descend together upon the same metropolitan area.
Faircloth announces that he is going to talk about the Bible. He begins with the story of Abraham and Isaac, which provided him his first moment of religious doubt.
He comes down hard against sectarian schools and daycares, as they are not subject to the same health and safety laws, unannounced inspections, and the like that are required for secular child care institutions. Sean talks about a young girl who was left alone, in a van, in the sun, for two hours by a person working for a sectarian daycare. The child died. He cites another examploe, in which a young boy was left alone in a vehicle for ten hours. He also died.
In pre-Columbian times the Incas would kill children to satisfy their gods. Jessica Crank, 15, had a tumour the size of a basketball on her shoulder. Her mother didn't believe in science, and in the 21st century, she died suffering. "They call it faith healing," Faircloth says. "I don't call it faith healing. I call it faith killing." Where were the right to life groups in the case of these children?
Sean Faircloth then speaks of Father Shanley, a now-defrocked priest who allegedly attended man-boy love meetings. According to Faircloth, the priest's superiors knew about it, but they claimed that religious freedom mandates that they do by have to share this information with the authorities.
Sean contends that Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Ted Haggard, and their ilk have special rights in our society—that's why the Secular Coalition for America is so important. These men have the power to say: "You're a Jew. You're fired." That's not right.
He proposes a thought experiment. You are running for office. You have an excellent platform, and a high approval rating—but the first thing that will happen once your candidacy is announced is that someone in the media will Google you. And they will find that you've said this:
The priests of the different religious sects dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight.
And even worse, you've said this:
Religions are all alike—founded upon fables and mythologies.
It turns out that both of those quotations are from the writings of Thomas Jefferson, and because of them and others like them he could not be elected today.
"The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession."
—Abraham Lincoln,
quoted by Joseph Lewis in Lincoln the Freethinker
"If there is a God, he is a malign thug."
—Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
"I believe in an America ... where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice."
—John F. Kennedy
Sean Faircloth is a very passionate speaker. He believes that America's tax-funded public schools should teach the Bible. But they should also teach the Qur'an, and they should teach the constitution. That's how children will learn. "Which evolves? Which is based on barbaric violence and viciousness?" John Lennon's Imagine: "The people of the world know the words to that song."
He urges everyone to visit http://www.secular.org/. "You will see that we have a modest plan to take over the United States." Applause.
"Life is either a great adventure or it is nothing at all."
This is the third in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
I'm happy that I'm finally getting some of these posts up. There will be 'round about two dozen of them, but I'll keep them short: I figure that it will hold a reader's interest better to have several short posts than a few long ones. You hear that, Tracie? (Disclaimer: I love Tracie Harris. But she and I share a predilection for loquacity.)
Michael Shermer
Shermer opens with a short personal anecdote that apparently happened to him that morning. I believe that it went something like this: as he was about to exit from the elevator on his way to the talk, he realised that a woman was also exiting on the same floor; he gestured for her to go ahead, but the hand with which he gestured happened to be the hand that was holding his iPhone, which promptly leapt from his fingers and sailed directly into the crack between the elevator and the hotel floor, bouncing the rest of the way down the elevator shaft. He now finds himself sans iPhone. (He assures us that although sometimes he makes up some of the stories he tells, this one is absolutely true.)
Michael moves on to conspiracy theories. Was 911 a conspiracy? Yes! Nineteen members of Al-Qaeda plotting to fly planes into buildings without telling us first is by definition a conspiracy!
His talk is about the "believing brain". He calls our brains "belief engines". We form beliefs, and once we've done so we seek out reasons to believe as we already do.
Shermer discusses associative learning (e.g., Pavlov's Dogs). Using food to reinforce behaviour, he trained a pigeon to peck out certain keys. When food reinforcement is provided completely at random, however, the pigeons will develop bizarre behaviour patterns (what Shermer calls "superstitions") that they "believe" will result in food reinforcement.
Type One Error: a false positive; believing that you discern a pattern where none exists.
Type Two Error: a false negative; believing that there is no pattern where patterns do exist.
Which is more harmless, from an evolutionary perspective? There is a natural selection bias for seeing patterns. (This is something that Dawkins has discussed several times as well; he supposes that our over-active pattern matching may be responsible for the early development of religion.)
Shermer moves on to a discussion of priming. The audience is shown images comprised entirely of random noise, then we are primed to see images in them. We're told that some evidence suggests that the more out of control we feel, the more superstitious we are. A higher rate of failure apparently correlates with superstition.
According to researcher Susan Blackmore, those who believe in ESP are 70% more likely to identify objects in severely damaged/degraded images—but these people were not any more likely to correctly identify the actual objects in the picture. Intriguing.
Michael Shermer tells the audience that increased dopamine levels increases patternicity. The left hemisphere of the brain is better at making intuitive connections. The problem that we face is a signal-to-noise ratio. If that ratio is too low, type two errors result. If it is too high, you have madness. But if you get the ratio just right, Shermer argues that the result is creativity.
He shows us some optical illusions (demonstrating how easy it is to trick our brains) and examples of pareidolia and general apophenia (to show how our brains are tuned to see patterns that aren't there):
Some lovely shoes.
Quite the sexy lamp.
I found this: purportedly the source of the "lamp" image. Looks like a 'shop to me.
An impossible cube. Shermer actually showed a picture of a fellow building one in 3D!
Shermer describes agenticity as the tendency to imbue inanimate objects or invisible actors with power over our lives. This is a common form of superstition.
We're natural dualists. Shermer mentions the films FreakyFriday and All of Me (a fairly good film, if you're a Steve Martin fan). The idea of one person's consciousness inhabiting another person's body seems fairly reasonable to us—which is quite bizarre from a monist or materialist standpoint. You can poke around in the temporal lobe to induce OBEs, déjà vu, etc. Pilots in training often pass out from excessive g-forces, and according to Michael 25% experience OBEs. We're able to imagine ourselves somewhere else (putting ourselves in someone else's position), and this ability (our theory of mind) may contribute to our natural dualism. (Visit the Everything Else Atheist for one of my favourite discussions on the problems with dualism.)
Michael talks briefly about confirmation bias before turning his attention back to priming. He plays the famous second verse of Stairway to Heaven, first forward, then backward without priming, and finally backward with priming. This didn't have a huge effect on me, as I was already familiar with this particular example of apophenia (and had thus already been primed), but judging from the audience's reaction I was in the minority.
If you've never heard Stairway to Heaven played backward, give it a listen!
One final note: Jen McCreight at Blag Hag discusses women and feminism at TAM, and she specifically calls out Michael Shermer for sexism.
The stereotype goes that women can [be] sexy/attractive/beautiful and stupid/ditsy/unscientific, or they can be smart/witty/scientific and frumpy/plain/ugly. This myth annoys the hell out of me, especially because it's so common.
This is the offensive clip in question:
I love The Big Bang Theory, but it has been criticised for heavy-handed stereotyping. And, to my mind, it is guilty: the female lead is hot, blonde, and fairly disinterested in science (although they do give her the equally stereotypical "street smarts"). But the show is equally guilty of stereotyping men! It is rife with fairly unattractive and nerdy men (Leonard, Sheldon, Raj, and Howard), fairly unattractive and nerdy women (Leslie), attractive and "stupid" women (Penny), and attractive and stupid men (all of Penny's friends, as well as her ex-boyfriend, Kurt).
I agree that the stereotypes of the "stupid hottie" and the "ugly smartypants" are pervasive in our culture. But, as a lifelong nerd, I would argue that they are also amply applied to men. Perhaps not equally, but amply.
This is the second in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the previous post here. You can find the next post here.
For other TAM coverage, you can visit Hemant at The Friendly Atheist (who liveblogged TAM) and Jen at Blag Hag (who had commentary to add after the fact).
Opening Remarks D.J. Grothe, Phil Plait, Hal Bidlack
While George Hrab was unable to attend the conference, his new album, Trebuchet, was played between talks, which was a nice touch. It has several amazing tracks, including my favourite, "Death From The Skies", which features Phil Plait discussing the many ways in which the world could end.
The opening remarks begin with Phil, who jokes that Las Vegas in July is akin to the surface of the sun. The former JREF president talks about growth in the skeptic movement. There are apparently more than 1,300 of us in attendance at the conference, which is heartening indeed!
D.J. comments that Randi is unavailable for the opening remarks, as he's currently doing an interview for Playboy. The mic is quickly passed to Hal, who promises some bad puns. He says that he is pleased to see so many newcomers, because we haven't heard his one good joke. (Spoiler alert: I still haven't.) According to Bidlack, "Mr. Randi once referred to it as homeopathic humour."
Levity wanes, and things turn more serious. There was a brief discussion of Randi's recent illness. Bidlack sums it up nicely: "Randi, working with science, kicked cancer's ass!"
"This stuff really matters," he says. Skepticism is important in so many arenas. He talks briefly about the magic dowsing device sold by British company ATSC, the ADE651, and his part in having the company shut down.
Like so many of the speakers at TAM, Hal Bidlack is very welcoming. Although I didn't get the chance to meet him personally, every person I know who's had the opportunity just loves the guy.
Hal reminds us to be kind to those who disagree. I could veritably feel the admonishment to atheists coming—this is apparently a fixture at TAM, as Bidlack is a deist. And I quote: "Mr. Randi is an atheist. I am not. ... But we both agree that Uri Geller is an ass."
Fair enough.
Hal advocates the "big tent approach" to skepticism—and I agree with him! I have several theistic friends who are otherwise excellent skeptics, and I wouldn't want to sour anyone on skepticism. At the same time, sometimes it's necessary to ridicule faith, and I'm fine with that, too—I think that faith is a dangerous way to go about deciding what to believe.
More on this later, when I discuss Phil Plait's talk, but I think that the diversity of voices in the skeptic movement that we have right now is important.
This is the first in a series of posts discussing The Amaz!ng Meeting 8, which took place at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 July 2010. You can find the next post here.
This was my first Amaz!ng Meeting. In case you're not familiar with TAM, here's the descriptive blurb from randi.org:
The Amaz!ng Meeting is a celebration of critical thinking and skepticism sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Thinking people travel the world to share learning, laughs and life with fellow skeptics and distinguished guest speakers.
I even met Scott Carnegie, a member of the Winnipeg Skeptics. You'd think that, being the organiser of the Winnipeg Skeptics myself, I would have met the guy before now. But apparently not. He also filmed me meeting James Randi, embarrassingly enough. (I assure you that before the camera was turned on, Randi and I had a deep philosophical discussion on the nature of skepticism 'round the world. And on the use of Photoshop.) I got Scott back, though, holding the camera while he had a much more substantive conversation with Phil Plait.
It was fantastic to meet so many influential people in the skeptic movement. Without exception, they were gracious, friendly, and approachable. D.J. Grothe was even fairly tolerant of me when I hounded him for a quick word and a photo while he was rushing through the halls of South Point, obviously hurrying to deal with some problem or other.
I actually felt quite bad about it, because I really didn't want to interrupt the guy—who was, in retrospect, obviously busy. I think that I also may have interrupted his conversation with Paul Kurtz! I approached him later on in the conference to apologise. He was very friendly. "Hey, don't worry about it," he told me. "We're all family."
Five members of the Winnipeg Skeptics attended TAM 8 in Las Vegas last week: Donna, Grant, Scott, my wife, and myself. It was—wait for it—amazing!
Over the next few days/weeks(/months?) I'll be posting updates with my thoughts on all of the main-event presentations, but Scott has some quick video interviews up on the 'Tube right now! The Winnipeg Skeptics even got a shout-out on Bad Astronomy!
Without further ado, here's the quickie interview that Scott did with Phil Plait:
Way to go, Scott! For more of Scott's TAM 8 videos, you can visit his YouTube user page!
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